Continental files for bankruptcy protection 'Business as usual' for airline at BWI

December 04, 1990|By Graeme Browning

Even though Continental Airlines has filed for protection under federal bankruptcy law, its planes are flying normal schedules at area airports, and passengers are not fretting about the change, airport spokesmen and travel agents said yesterday.

At Baltimore-Washington International Airport, "it's business as usual," said Dana Stoneham, Continental's supervisor of airport service for BWI.

Continental flies three DC-9 jets daily to Cleveland and six propeller-driven commuter flights daily to Newark, N.J., out of BWI, Ms. Stoneham said. Despite the bankruptcy filing, "all systems are go," she said.

By the end of the day, Omega World Travel Inc., a travel agency based in Falls Church, Va., that has three full-service offices in the Baltimore area and 197 more nationwide, had had no requests to change reservations from Continental to other airlines, said Nancy Pace, manager of the corporate department.

When there is news of an airline in financial trouble, "what we normally do is run a search through the computer data base for clients who have bookings on that airline, and then we protect them by making them duplicate bookings on another airline," Ms. Pace said.

"But nobody has called us to ask for changes," she said.

Managers of Continental operations at National Airport in Washington and Dulles Airport in Northern Virginia also reported that the airline's flights were proceeding as scheduled.

"I just came back from supervising a departure at 4 p.m., and the customers didn't even say anything to me," said Tom Pryor, Continental's station manager at Dulles.

Continental has six daily jet flights out of Dulles -- to Denver, Houston and Newark -- and six commuter flights to Newark on weekdays, Mr. Pryor said.

All of Continental's 21 daily flights out of National Airport were operating, said Richard Paegel, Continental's general manager at the airport.